Category Archives: Philosophy Of Sex

Relax your body before you start this questionnaire. It’s important you start this with shoulders loose and mind clear. Don’t rush through the following questions, because chances are they’ll lead to still more probing. (For now, jot down those additional questions on a separate sheet of paper for future reference.) The best way to do these justice is to read them through in one sitting, let them “marinate” awhile and then reread them and give your answers. Some of them may trigger an immediate response; others take more thought. Please don’t give a fast pat answer; the whole point of this exercise is to search deeper for your real belief.

—How do you feel about sex outside marriage? Does your religion, upbringing or personal morality make it out of bounds? Would denying those controls upset you so much that you wouldn’t enjoy yourself if you did become sexually active?

—If you can enjoy sex outside marriage, how do you feel about sex outside caring?

—Can you imagine having sex on the first date? If you can, what sort of “ingredients” would have to be present? If not, when do you feel is a reasonable time to begin sexual involvement?

—Would you get involved with someone even if you knew it was to be for a very short time — perhaps only for one night? Under what circumstances?

—Can you imagine having a married lover? Why or why not?

—Would you consider having a sexual relationship with more than one person at the same time? (This question deals with plural ongoing relationships, not with group sex.)

—Ideally, how often would you like to have sex? How long can you go without sex?

—Do you enjoy periods of celibacy? For how long can you remain celibate? Are you ever concerned about losing your sex drive?

—What are your thoughts about giving yourself pleasure? Masturbation is still a taboo issue, but your own thoughts on the subject should be very clear because of the episodic nature of sex as a single person.

—If you are sexually active, have you settled on a safe and effective method of contraception? If you answered “no” or are unsure of your answer, are you clear about the range of options open to you and which one is best for you?

—Do you know enough about sexually transmitted diseases — such as AIDS and herpes — to protect yourself? If not, do you know how to get information about them?

—Do you/would you ask a new partner about his or her history of sexually transmitted disease before becoming intimate, even though it might be awkward?

—How do you plan to handle pressure from a date or partner to have sex when you’d rather not?

—If you’re a single parent, are you clear about having sleepover lovers when your children are home? Are you clear about separating your personal needs from your parental role? How honestly do you speak with your children about your sexual relationships?

—What do you appreciate most about sex? What makes it wonderful for you?

—Do you feel comfortable speaking with your partner about your likes and dislikes in lovemaking? Is your partner comfortable talking with you about them?

—How strongly do you feel about the answers you’ve given here?

—What, if anything, would make you change your mind about them?

—Do you have an idea about handling your sex life if you were to be unmarried for a lifetime?

—Do you feel you could adapt your sexual attitudes to make yourself, as a single person, more comfortable? If yes, how would you accomplish this?

What other questions can you ask yourself now that you’re thinking along these lines? If you’ve come up with more of them, write and answer them. Remember, please, there are no rights or wrongs here — only clear thinking on some murky issues. Best to clarify them now rather than be faced with that murkiness totally unprepared and therefore most vulnerable.

It’s not always just about sex

Communication is essential in almost every aspect of our lives. But these days it can seem as though we’re more interested in social media than connecting with those we’re most intimate with. The 2014 British Sex Survey showed a shocking 61% of respondents said that it’s possible to maintain a happy relationship or marriage without sex. Whether you believe this or not, new research has emerged that shows just how important sex is for a relationship. According to lead author, Lindsey L. Hicks, more sex is associated with a happier marriage, regardless of what people say:

“We found that the frequency with which couples have sex has no influence on whether or not they report being happy with their relationship, but their sexual frequency does influence their more spontaneous, automatic, gut-level feelings about their partners,”

We spoke to Stefan Walters, Psychological Therapist at Harley Therapy London, to find out the role sex can play within a relationship and the attitude we should all be taking towards it. Here’s what he wishes we all knew:

1. It’s good to talk about sex!

Lots of clients still feel like opening up about their sex lives is a real taboo, and that sexual thoughts should be kept private and hidden away. But the truth is that sex is a huge part of who we are – it plays a vital role in determining our identities, and in shaping the relationships we choose throughout our lives – so it’s good to talk about it, and there’s nothing shameful or degrading about doing so. You might not think that your sexual thoughts are relevant to certain other issues in your life, but sometimes sharing these inner desires can really shine a light on something else that’s seemingly unconnected.

2. …but don’t JUST talk about sex

Sex is often the symptom, not the cause. Lots of people come to therapy looking to resolve a sexual issue, and often there’s a temptation to focus on that issue and not talk about anything else. But as you explore around the problem, you tend to find that what’s being played out in the bedroom is often related to other thoughts and feelings. Even something as innocuous as moving house or changing job can have an unexpected impact on libido, as attention and energy levels are focused elsewhere. So it’s really important to get the full picture of what’s going on.

3. There’s nothing you could say that would surprise your therapist

People go to therapy for all kinds of sexual issues. This might be a question of their own orientation, making sense of a certain fetish, or exploring some kind of dysfunction which they feel is preventing them from having the sex life they truly desire. No matter how embarrassed you might feel about a certain sex-related issue, your therapist won’t judge you for it, and will remain calm and impartial as you explore the problem. Sexual issues are very common reasons for people to seek therapy, so your therapist has most likely heard it all before; and however filthy or unusual you might think your kink is, someone else has probably already shared it.

4. The biggest sexual organ is the brain

People spend so much time focusing on genitals, but often forget about the brain. Sex is a deeply psychological process, and one person’s turn ons can be another’s turn offs. This is because we all get aroused by different sensory stimuli, and have a different set of positive and negative associations for all kinds of situations and events; often relating back to previous experiences. You can have a lot of fun with your body, but truly great sex needs to involve the brain as well. After all, it’s the brain that gets flooded with a magical cocktail of chemicals – dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins – at the point of orgasm, to produce an almost trance-like experience

There’s no single definition of a good sex life

5. Sex means different things to different people, at different times

There’s no single definition of a good sex life. Sexuality is fluid, and needs and desires can change drastically from person to person, and even day to day. For example, at the start of a relationship sex is usually about pleasure and passion, but over time it can become more about intimacy and connection, and then if a couple decide to have children it can suddenly become quite outcome-focused. Sometimes people struggle to cope with these transitions, or may find that their own needs don’t match with their partners’, and this is why talking about sex is so important in relationships.

6. Don’t put it off

If you do have a sex-related worry or concern, it’s best to talk about it as soon as possible. If you don’t feel comfortable discussing it with a family member or a friend or partner, then seek out a good therapist to explore the issue with you. The longer you wait, the more it becomes likely that you build the issue up in your head, or start to complicate it even further. It’s always best to tackle issues, rather than to let them fester or be ignored. More than ever, people are talking openly about their sexual orientations and desires, so there’s no need to deal with your worries alone. Everyone deserves to feel sexually fulfilled, and that includes you.

Growing into our sexual selves is a lifelong process, like growing up in general. But because we don’t have a lot of language for our sexual lives, we somehow erroneously expect that sex is something we are born knowing how to do. Like any other physical and emotional skill, our sexual capacity to both give and receive pleasure increases with education and practice.

We begin waking up to our emerging erotic consciousness in our early adolescence. This awakening process is mostly subconscious, as our maturing brain connects the powerful arousal mechanism to historic and unresolved painful events and relationships. Like our fingerprints, or the subtle distinctions in our sense of smell—what turns us on sexually is largely outside of our control and often contradicts the way we view ourselves outside of the bedroom.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that the first and often the most persistent issue for most of us on our sexual journey is reconciling our interests with our sense of what is “normal.” Quite often, sexual discovery tests the boundaries of normalcy. Our sexual selves are the unique, wild streak in us that cannot be contained and whose full pleasure potential cannot be achieved if we try to rein it in.

“Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” —Sydney Harris

Instead of healthy dialogue and reliable information about what it means to become and embrace who we are sexually, our curiosity and confusion about emerging sexuality are often met with archaic teachings, generational discomfort from those we trust, misinformation from our peers, and a complex cultural obsession.

The majority of us never have the opportunity to adequately explore the questions that arise from our earliest adolescent erotic awakening. Maturing beyond our initial discomfort requires education, and real sexual education is hard to come by.

For many young people, low-grade anxiety prevents them from engaging in any real conversations, whether with a friend, doctor, or even their partners about their fears and the obstacles they face sexually. Often, even the more progressive will turn their sexual concerns into a joke, laughing at their discomfort and communicating either that sexual concerns are not to be taken seriously or at least not to be discussed seriously.

What we suppress becomes more powerful. Suppressing our sexual nature only exacerbates our preoccupation with it. Asking honest questions about our sexual selves and being able to get reliable information allows us to use sexual privacy in healthy ways. Studies show that the kids who are given the most sexual education are often the last ones to engage sexually. They don’t need to learn about it by doing it—their theoretical learning allows them to make healthy choices about when and with whom they want to do it.

People who have come to terms with this essential aspect of their being are happier and more satisfied in every other aspect of their life as well.

Likewise, adults who move beyond their adolescent sexual anxiety through education gain not only the courage to take ownership of their erotic preferences but also the skills to engage in sexual behavior that is consistently pleasurable. Sexually mature adults are not waiting for someone else to make them feel sexy or give them permission to explore the range of their sexual function.

Taking full responsibility for their own sexual needs allows them to also be truly responsive to the sexual needs of others, which makes them attractive partners that tend to stay partnered. Aspiring to sexual maturity evokes a host of other essential skills for life—sexually mature adults tend to also be emotionally intelligent and capable of dealing with life changes.

Our sexual selves are often perceived as a locked box of bizarre fantasies and out-of-control impulses toward carnal pleasure. While it’s true that a mature sex life employs these tools for pleasure, working at our sexual evolution is more like developing core strength. Because our erotic identity is so central to who we are, people who have come to terms with this essential aspect of their being are happier and more satisfied in every other aspect of their life as well.

The new season of her critically acclaimed Netflix series, “Grace and Frankie,” co-starring Lily Tomlin, sees the two women launch a business selling sex toys for women. If you happen to drive down Vine Street in Hollywood, you might see a giant billboard of Fonda and Tomlin holding ribbed, purple objects under the words “Good vibes” — in case there was any confusion about what they’re holding.

And if you watch “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” you may have happened upon Fonda unveiling a vibrator on daytime TV. (Take that, “The View”!)

“Was this something you knew about before the character?” DeGeneres asks. “Before you researched it, was this something you knew about, I mean, were familiar with? Used?”

Fonda offers an emphatic “yes,” before explaining that she owns one vibrator that doubles as a necklace. “It looks like a beautiful piece of silver jewelry.”

Until it doesn’t.

“I applaud her,” said Lauren Streicher, medical director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause. “I’ve been trying to talk about this on daytime TV for years, and no one will have any part of it.”

Fifty-two percent of American women use a vibrator, Streicher said, according to a 2009 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. And women over 60, in particular, need to know about their benefits.

“Sometimes nerve endings aren’t as sensitive as they used to be, so what did it for you before isn’t going to necessarily do it anymore,” said Streicher, who wrote “Sex Rx: Hormones, Health, and Your Best Sex Ever” (Dey St.). “In addition, you have a lot of medical conditions — diabetes, cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis — that can cause a desensitization of nerve endings, so there is a need for increased stimulation.”

Which may explain why the Carol Wright Gifts catalog — known mostly for its compression support knee-high socks, bunion bandages and denture liners — features a two-page spread of “personal massagers” with such names as Couple’s Raging Bull and The Amazing Butterfly Kiss.

There should be no shame in the vibrator game.

“It’s really just an acknowledgment that women are entitled to pleasure,” Streicher said. “It’s OK for men to have sex and pleasure and to desire that until the day they die, but when you look at women in their 70s talking about sexuality, that’s been something mainstream media has absolutely no interest in.”

Maybe Fonda will help change that.

“I hope so,” Streicher told me. “When I teach medical students, I tell them: Don’t ever say to a woman, ‘Do you have a vibrator?’ That is the wrong question. What you say is, ‘When you use your vibrator …'”

She continued: “When I ask a patient, as part of her history, ‘Are you able to have an orgasm?’ and she says no, I say, ‘How about when you use your vibrator?'”

It lessens the stigma and leads to a more honest discussion, Streicher said.

“We know, at best, maybe 25 percent of women are able to have an orgasm through intercourse alone,” she said. “If men weren’t able to have orgasms and there was a device that made it happen, there would be nothing taboo about it.”